'Fluffy' Spiral Galaxy Shines in New Photo

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The long, coiled arms of a spiral galaxy can be seen in rich
detail in a new photo from the European Southern Observatory.

The photo, released Wednesday (Aug. 10), shows the big galaxy NGC
3521, which is about 35 million light-years from Earth in the
constellation of Leo (The Lion). The large galaxy is about 50,000
light-years across, and is home to a bright, compact core
brimming with stars. It's those stars that lend it a tuft-like
appearance, which led astronomers to categorize it as a so-called
"flocculent" (or fluffy) spiral galaxy. [ See
the new NGC 3521 galaxy photo ]

The European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope
zoomed in on the galaxy and its most distinctive features: its
long spiral arms that are dotted with bustling
star-forming regions, interspersed with veins of dust.

In this new image, the galaxy's colorful yet seemingly blurry
spiral arms can be seen. Older stars dominate the reddish area in
the center while young, hot blue stars permeate the arms further
away from the core. The Very Large Telescope is located at the
ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile.

The arms of NGC 3521 are somewhat patchy and irregular, which
makes it a so-called
flocculent spiral galaxy, astronomers said. These galaxies
exhibit "fluffy" spiral arms that differ from the sweeping arms
of grand-design spiral arms, such as can be seen in the famous
Whirlpool galaxy or M 51, which was discovered by the
French astronomer Charles Messier.

The bright NGC galaxy is relatively close (in astronomical
terms). It can easily be spotted by skywatchers equipped with a
small telescope, such as the one used by Messier when he
catalogued a series of hazy and comet-like objects in the 1700s,
ESO officials said.

NGC 3521 was discovered by another famous astronomer, William
Herschel, in 1784, the year that Messier published the final
version of his catalogue. Herschel spotted NGC 3521 early on in
his more detailed surveys of the northern skies, according to ESO
officials.

Using his larger, 47-cm (18.5-inch) aperture, telescope, Herschel
spotted a "bright center surrounded by nebulosity," he recorded
in his observation notes.

While Messier was the first to catalog these objects, he may have
overlooked the fluffy NGC 3521 spiral, even though he identified
several other galaxies of similar brightness in the constellation
of Leo.